Did liberal Barney Frank have a huge influence on Freddie and Fannie pushing loans to non credit worthy individuals and thus creating the property bubble that brought the economy down? Yes, the banks got greedy, but the liberals wanted every one to own a home. The liberals wanted the lower income earners to have the American dream too... it would give them the votes necessary to stay in power! Bailouts only came about because liberals screwed things up in the first place![/quote]
George Soros on Trading
- Thread starter BCE
- Start date
You are simply factually incorrect. A loan AT A BELOW MARKET RATE by definition is a bailout. To say otherwise is simply absurd! BTW, I was in favor of bailing out the car companies. At that time not doing it would have not only shut down Michigan but Ohio and half of Wisconsin as well.
The next time your mind wanders to the premise that it is not a bailout think of your brother in law coming to you for $50,000 because his business is about to go under. He can't get a dime from any bank or financial institution and you are his only hope. You come through with the money (when no one else in the entire world would at any price!!) and a few years later when things go well for him do you think you bailed him out of his crisis or do you think the two of you did a normal piece of business?
I have no choice but to defend Soros here. You couldn't be more wrong about him when you write: "[Soros] makes... millions on low taxes, low regulations, high volatility, land of opportunity, etc, then once [he has] it, [he wants] to shut those doors for everyone else."
In truth, George Soros, perhaps more than any other individual alive today, has opened the door of opportunity for millions of oppressed people through his his Open Society Foundations. And those contributions barely scratch the surface of his philanthropy.
If there is one thing he is not , it is a hypocrite. Would you care to give a single example of Soros' hypocrisy? He has written eloquently on this very topic.
Furthermore, you have accused him of tax fraud. Do care to give any factual basis for your accusation?
Soros was convicted of and fined for insider trading, years after the fact and years after having been exonerated. There is a very detailed description of this case on Wikipedia. I excerpted the main details from the Wiki article to be found in entirety here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros, and I quote them below. The Wiki article has still more detail however.
"In 1988, Soros was interested in purchasing shares in French companies. The Socialist party had lost its majority of seats in the Assembly, and the new government under Jacques Chirac had instituted an aggressive privatization program. Many people considered shares in the newly privatized companies undervalued. During this period, a French financier named Georges Pébereau contacted one of Soros' advisors in an effort to assemble a group of investors to purchase a large number of shares in Société Générale, a leading French bank that was part of the program. The advisor reported to Soros that Pébereau's plan was ambiguous and included an implausible takeover plan, which later failed. On that advice, and without ever having met the financier, Soros decided against participating.[42]
Soros did, however, move forward with his strategy of accumulating shares in four French companies: Société Générale, as well as Suez, Paribas and the Compagnie Générale d'Électricité. In 1989, the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (the French stock exchange regulatory authority) conducted an investigation of whether Soros' transaction in Société Générale should be considered insider trading. Soros had received no information from the Société Générale, and had no insider knowledge of the business, but he did possess knowledge that a group of investors was planning a takeover attempt. The COB concluded that the statutes, regulations and case law relating to insider trading did not clearly establish that a crime had occurred, and that no charges should be brought against Soros.[43]
Several years later, a Paris-based prosecutor reopened the case against Soros and two other French businessmen, disregarding the COB's findings. This resulted in Soros' 2005 conviction for insider trading by the Court of Appeals (he was the only one of the three to receive a conviction). The French Supreme Court confirmed the conviction on June 14, 2006, but reduced the penalty to €940,000.[44]"
Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing, saying news of the takeover was public knowledge[45] and it was documented that his intent to acquire shares of the company predated his own awareness of the takeover.[44]
For those interested, this is an article reporting Soros' 2011, failed attempt to have is insider trading conviction in France overturned.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/soros-loses-challenge-to-insider-trading-conviction/?_r=0
"In 1988, Soros was interested in purchasing shares in French companies. The Socialist party had lost its majority of seats in the Assembly, and the new government under Jacques Chirac had instituted an aggressive privatization program. Many people considered shares in the newly privatized companies undervalued. During this period, a French financier named Georges Pébereau contacted one of Soros' advisors in an effort to assemble a group of investors to purchase a large number of shares in Société Générale, a leading French bank that was part of the program. The advisor reported to Soros that Pébereau's plan was ambiguous and included an implausible takeover plan, which later failed. On that advice, and without ever having met the financier, Soros decided against participating.[42]
Soros did, however, move forward with his strategy of accumulating shares in four French companies: Société Générale, as well as Suez, Paribas and the Compagnie Générale d'Électricité. In 1989, the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (the French stock exchange regulatory authority) conducted an investigation of whether Soros' transaction in Société Générale should be considered insider trading. Soros had received no information from the Société Générale, and had no insider knowledge of the business, but he did possess knowledge that a group of investors was planning a takeover attempt. The COB concluded that the statutes, regulations and case law relating to insider trading did not clearly establish that a crime had occurred, and that no charges should be brought against Soros.[43]
Several years later, a Paris-based prosecutor reopened the case against Soros and two other French businessmen, disregarding the COB's findings. This resulted in Soros' 2005 conviction for insider trading by the Court of Appeals (he was the only one of the three to receive a conviction). The French Supreme Court confirmed the conviction on June 14, 2006, but reduced the penalty to €940,000.[44]"
Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing, saying news of the takeover was public knowledge[45] and it was documented that his intent to acquire shares of the company predated his own awareness of the takeover.[44]
For those interested, this is an article reporting Soros' 2011, failed attempt to have is insider trading conviction in France overturned.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/soros-loses-challenge-to-insider-trading-conviction/?_r=0
Total bullshit. No law passed or even advocated by the most liberal congress required banks to make liar loans. That greedhead decision they made all on their own. Maybe if someday you get cured of your Liberal Derangement Syndrome you'll reason more clearly.
I think liar loans volumes increased, as more sales people entered the mortage industry, and not just
mortgage loan sellers.
Then they looked to increase volume and commissions, by showing the public how to make a loan application look good.
No law was passed to require the IRS to target certain non liberal political groups either, but the influence came from some powerful people...White House probably. Frank had the same type of influence with Freddie and Fannie. The rest of the banks had to keep up by joining the corruption. I'm neither left or right...independent all the way. Both sides are corrupt as hell, the right is the lesser of two evils because they are pro business. I find it strange that many traders are so liberal. If traders wasted their money the same way as the left does, they wouldn't have money to trade with! To have money to trade with you need to be conservative with it... if you are conservative with money, how can you not be frustrated with your own party and its foolishness. The right has plenty of issues as well, but right now the left has a president that puts his legacy and idealistic ways before the country and pushes them in the media almost daily...that's why I appear to have the "Syndrome".
This is crap. The role in the financial crisis of government incentives, put in place many years earlier, to get banks to lend more in depressed areas, to minority start-ups etc. has been looked at very carefully. It played no significant role whatsoever in the financial crisis. The driving force behind the liar loans and other abuses was demand for mortgages to securitize. Investment banks could not get their hands on new mortgages fast enough to satisfy the demand created by those same banks for CDOs via ratings manipulation. CDOs were, for a time, selling like hotcakes. The popularity of CDOs in turn resulted in a glut of mortgage money. There weren't enough qualified borrowers, so the banks looked the other way as mortgage processors lowered standards to rock bottom to keep raking in fees and supplying mortgages to the banks.
If you want to put the blame on any one individual it's Greenspan, not Frank, you should pinpoint. Greenspan knew about excesses in the mortgage industry, and as chief regulator it was up to him to see that underwriting standards were tightened up. He did nothing. He did not believe in regulation. He thought markets, if left alone, would self-correct more or less harmlessly. He has said publicly that his biggest mistake was believing that Bankers would not act against their own best interests. Apparently Greenspan never got as far in his appraisal of the situation as "too big to fail."